Microsoft really, really hates its dud Vista operating system - so much so that it can now openly badmouth its own product while taking a bitchy stab at Apple and its current iPhone 4 antenna woes.
The company’s COO Kevin Turner took to the stage at Microsoft’s annual partner shindig yesterday to offload some snarky soundbites …

No 'the' about it

What was Microsoft's market share before Vista? What is Microsoft's market share now? Your attempt to draw a distinction between the buying habits of iPhone customers and customers of every other company simply doesn't work.

@more about the customers...

Or maybe it just says that Apple have a better handle on what aspects of the product are important to their customer base than their rivals do...

Lets face it, just how many of the products that this flakey industry we work in delivers can really be said to work correctly in every aspect. It really depresses me that people would much rather buy the latest version with more wizzy whatsits and even more bugs than encourage the vendor to make the old product work consistently and reliably. Everything about purchasing habits in IT suggest that wealth of features is far more important to the customer than lack of bugs.

Seriously?

"Or maybe it just says that Apple have a better handle on what aspects of the product are important to their customer base than their rivals do..."

What? You're suggesting that Apple's market research has shown iPhone users don't really care if their products can make phone calls, send text messages or make data connections? Seriously? PLEASE read your comments before posting and have a little think about what you are saying.

I'm sure there are a million and one reasons why people buy iPhones but "Hey, it'll make a great paper-weight" doesn't count amongst them.

Re: @Sarah

@Stone Fox

Umm, it doesn't actually work like that. As in those crazy esoteric areas of life like science and law, the person making a statement has the burden of establishing that it's true. In all probability, if I were to claim that "In Summer 2003 you drowned a kitten" then people wouldn't think that must be true unless you can convince us that it's false. They'd ask me for my evidence.

@D'oh

And since when do phones come with a manual stating how to "hold it like a normal human being"?? If you did hang around human beings at all, you'd have noticed nobody needs instruction on how to hold their phones, they just pick it up any way the want and use the thing, no worries about not touching this or that corner -- my el cheapo phone that came free certainly didn't come with such instructions, and I've never paid attention how I'm holding it, which can be several different ways and either hand, depending on what I'm doing. Amazingly enough, it's yet to drop a call in two years of use. Funny, that.

Hold the phone

@you know *nothing* of the criteria people use when buying an iPhone

Let's think about this for a moment. "If I hold this wrong I'm going to drop calls. I want one anyway." Seems to me that it's pretty obvious that functionality is not high on the list of considerations here. That's certainly not Apple's failing. In fact I'd call it a win for them and an epic fail for anyone who's gullible enough to buy their products.

Apple learned from the master

Sure we know folks criteria for buying APPLE

Consumerist folks are *zzwhole top-2-bottom. They buy crap-product ... just because they have freely-disposable money to do so. And **you** don't. How prole can it be to worry about ANTENNA DESIGN. Feckin-A dipole this dipole that ... peon iPhoneLess scum ... eat dirt.

@Vicky

Did they run those adverts outside of the US?

That style of advertising is pretty common in the US, whether it's Apple vs PC (+Windows), Verizon vs AT&T (+iPhone), Acura vs Toyota or Andrex vs Cushelle. In short, everyone does it. IIRC, MS did their own ones when Vista was around and they were a laughing stock.

I've never seen an Apple advert on TV in the UK, but then I don't live in/around London, so there are a great many adverts I haven't seen for all sorts of things.

I think those X vs Y type of adverts are frowned upon very seriously by the ASA, particularly where they make subjective or difficult to substantiate claims. Look at the recent hoo-har over who has the "best" 3G coverage, for example.

yes they did

I saw the I'm a Mac and I'm a PC adverts in the cinema in the UK. They annoyed me greatly because they were blatantly wrong. One stated windows PC's lock up all the time and get viruses while it's impossible for Mac OS X PC's to have problems. While another said how PC's were for work and you couldn't play games on them, this before Steam was brought to Mac OS X.

They were around for about 2 months before they went, I'm guessing the ASA had them pulled for being misleading/lying.

Pulled for being rubbish, actually

For some reason they cast Mitchell & Webb in the localised versions, basically doing their Peep Show characters. So PC (/Mitchell) was about what they wanted, Mac (/Webb) was more like what Microsoft would want - lazy and self important. Or like they'd decided that the message should be "OS vendors are all a little rubbish"

I think they do localised versions in quite a few countries. Or did, at least.

D

Unfortunately they did...and they cast British actors too. Namely the two characters out of Peep Show (in character). Obviously the hacks looking to generate that hideous, toe curlingly smug atmosphere which accompanies any Apple advert didn't understand that BOTH the Peep Show characters are deeply flawed. They had Mark as the straight PC and Jeremy as the 'Cool' Mac. As anybody who has seen the show knows, Jeremy is a loser who tries to be cool and epically fails all of the time.

Apple adverts seem specifically designed for existing Apple fanatics and only appear to enrage or turn off other potential market. The smugness is overwhelming too.

As for the games claim, I don't remember it but it is obviously complete bollocks. Good luck playing the latest games on an adapted laptop with a huge resolution screen...fail

@AC re: diatribe claiming he is better than you

Response to Iphone purchases

Apple has attained a status where I believe no other company has matched; whereby the everyday consumer actually desires these products regardless of it's deficiencies.

The desire is irrational, you can't apply reason or logic to it, hence the success of the iphone4 even with the antenna flaw. That is why I think your prediction is wrong; I believe people will still covet Apple products and still purchase them in greater numbers.

@AC

fact is, I (and almost every other mac user I know) have NEVER bought an Apple device for the coolness.

I know they dont "just work". Perfection in software / hardware from any manufacturer is pretty much impossible.

But they do 'work' much better than anything else. I know I am much more productive using a mac than windows. I have to use both on an almost daily basis so its nothing to do with what i am familiar with.

Now can you claim that you have spent years working on both, so that your post was an informed decision? Or was it just a jealous rant of someone who just fears the unknown so has to justify their own faults by masking it with a put down of others?

Not so true

Apple's products are a fashion item, but you can't dismiss their usability. I'm yet to use a touchscreen phone that's got the responsiveness of the iPhone, or an mp3 player that has the ease of use of the iPod's click wheel. Granted, iTunes is horrid, and marketing may be the drive for most purchases, but you are simply denying all the good things their products have.

Re: iPhone purchases

Well, that certainly explains why every review claims that the iPhone 4 is a great device--even those from from Consumer Reports and the like, which say that--other than the antenna issue--the iPhone 4 is the best smart-phone in the market.

Perhaps most iPhone customers are buying the phone for *those* additional qualities, and enjoy them much more than they care for the so-called antenna problem.

It's been said before,

Tombo

>People buy the iPhone for the same reason people buy any Apple product- no it's not quality, they've always been full of defects, no it's not features, they've always lacked features compared to competitors, no it's not even usability because most Apple stuff doesn't "just work"

Actually I buy the stuff for their quality and features.

I also have a Thinkpad for my windows work. It's a piece of shit. They used to be good but now they aren't. It's running Windows 7. The switchable graphics driver crashes consistently and now it won't wake up from hibernate. Even if I hold it a different way, these things still happen. The docking station is nice though.

Nothing else "works" better.

Apple's stuff largely does work better than the competition. Why? because the competition is driven by feature count or USP (unique selling point, adding a feature that the competition doesn't have).

It's why the HTC phones are like swiss army knives, lots of ports, features and tools, but none of them particularly nice to use.

When reading a review of the HTC desire I found it quite comical. Something along the lines of "when trying to phone someone, the first time the phone locked up, but it was fine after that". That's Microsoft quality, the old "if it doesn't work, try it again" line. The sort of shoddy quality we've grown accustomed to with Microsoft, "yeah ignore that error, the phone was just starting up, it will be okay once it has booted".

Another thing I read which made me laugh was HTC Sync and how (a) it wasn't included with the phone and (b) when downloaded it found the phone but wouldn't back up the phone? backup software that doesn't work? that's about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

There's been bigger problems with HTC phones that have had even more angrier responses, but since HTC don't make the headlines much the press doesn't care.

Sites like this give you an idea that things aren't perfect in HTC land either:

http://www.htcclassaction.org/

I'm about to get my iPhone 4 after nearly two years with my iPhone 3G. Before this phone I had about two phones a year on average, getting bored or frustrated with them, especially the lack of software enhancements.

The big problem with phones is the hardware is often more capable than the software, but OEMs don't care about this as they only make money from the hardware, so they want you to keep buying phones even if you've got a really good piece of hardware already.

I can honestly say the iPhone is the best phone I've had. Although I would have liked to see the Palm Pre do well as their OS looks much nicer than Android. It's good to have competition.

I'd love to agree with you

...but I just cannot. The only reason my desktop is not running linux (like my laptop) is itunes (and Civ4). I also find the itouch (I don't want a Jesus phone) a very nice UI which just works.

I've never patched it past the 1.5 free firmware though, as I couldn't be arsed about apps / games, I just want to watch movies on a flight and listen to music. The Jesus phone pisses through the battery compared to the itouch.

Smartphones I've purchased include samsung omnia (which is shite), palm pre (which is so good that the wife stole it - it really is a girls phone in fairness), so I've purchased an android phone 20 minutes ago to replace it. It had better live up to the hype.....!!!!

@Giles

Can't say that post makes much sense, are you having a go at HTC (one maker of phones on which Win runs, out of many others), Windows (which you don't mention much), or the HTC Desire (which runs Android)? Just to help, the story's about Microsoft.

The class action site that's not been updated in two years didn't really provide any enlightenment, but it does show HTC responding from quite early stages (Apple silence anyone?).

No particular position, am Linux lover, Win hater and never felt the need to try any Apple products (or Nike/Reebok/et al). Tho I am a technical user, so that does influence my choices, as obviously I can trust myself quite well.

P.S. just checked around my Desire and it has two ports - mini USB and earphones... about the same as an iPhone I would guess. Unless "lots of ports" was supposed to be spelt "two ports that aren't proprietary".

Nothing personal, honest, just that even amongst the rabid collection of comments on this thread, yours stood out. Have a beer on me...

No you didn't...

...say '... your average Nokia smartphone tends to achieve such as the N95 with it's 10mill+ sales.' (You forgot to put a 'flame' icon AC 12:02.) When was the last time you heard about people waiting in a cue for a Nokia... ANYTHING? Has Nokia ever sold 2mill+ of ONE phone in less than 3 weeks? Do you honestly believe in what you wrote? Why was you allowed NEAR a keyboard? Is the library closing? Quality ... and technical merits? They virtually introduced touch phones and everyone else followed -damn the cost! And you don't believe a predictive 7.5mill in 6 MONTHS of ONE phone? Nokia only DREAMS of those figures!

Strange?

That's strange because my HTC Desire came with the backup software on the SD Card. Granted I can't use it with my Mac, but it is there and it did backup my phone when I tried it on my work laptop running XP SP3.

My iPhone 3G was also the best phone I'd ever owned until I got my HTC Desire.

Why not try one for 7 days or so. Order from an online retailer where you can return the handset before 7 days are up and give it a try?

I was going to do a back to back with the iPhone 4, but as none were available I just decided to keep the Desire.

Apple's stuff just works better than the competition? Probably. But any better than a stock laptop with Win7? Doubtful. I reckon most of the horror stories around Windows are all down to the way on PC can be so different to another. It's easy to develope something for a Mac where the OS is the same, the h/w is the same, basically it's locked down. A PC can be any number of combinations, unless it's something like my mam's laptop that came with Win7 and will never be fiddled with.

Tombo

>I reckon most of the horror stories around Windows are all down to the way on PC can be so different to another. It's easy to develope something for a Mac where the OS is the same, the h/w is the same, basically it's locked down.

I completely and totally agree with you. Most of the problems with the PC (or IBM-Clone as we used to call them) is third party drivers, and marketingware and all that. This comes from 3rd party hardware venders and generally not Microsoft's fault. The fact remains, from a customer's point of view, with the IBM-Clone, I have to deal with that crap much less than I do with my Macs.